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Shlohmo's Stoner Playlist

Contrary to what his elegant productions suggest, Henry Laufer isn’t a chill stoner. The producer known as Shlohmo blazes to Norwegian black metal, doom metal, and even Mystikal’s frenetic rap. Somehow, though, he makes some of the most 420-friendly music in the game. Inspired by mid-’00s hip-hop and IDM classics like Boards of Canada, the 25-year-old L.A. native turns the pet obsessions of a ’90s skater kids into rich, multi layered compositions. Next month, he’s releasing his second full-length album, Dark Red, a moody, noise-inflected record two years in the making. Given Shlohmo’s diverse influences and love of ganja, we decided to ask this young stoner about his favorite smoke-out jams. "I don’t really know what’s better high and what’s better not high, cause, um, I’m usually high," he says. Behold, the harshest smoker’s playlist of all time:

"This was big on SoundCloud a couple years ago. It’s gorgeous. Also, the song’s still pitch-locked, so it sounds like his voice—only screwed to the thousandth percent, times ten times ten to the tenth power. Once, we played that at my label’s showcase, just let that shit run. It’s weird, but it’s a good one."

"The first time I ever got stoned, I remember listening to Mystikal. My friend Julian and I would go through his No Limit Records days, and find the parts that made us laugh and show them to each other, like whenever he goes, ’UGH! AH! YEYUH!’ ’We Got the Clout’ is a really fucked-up pick; if you were high for the first time, listening to this song would ruin your life."

"Oh man, I listen to this shit in the car, at home, on the plane, and even when I go to sleep. He always talks about being a pisces, and how that’s the rap sign. My favorite line is, ’See, I was born on the coldest day of the year, March 11th.’ Also, he’s all about smoking chewy, or coke blunts, so this is all coke rap. It’s the craziest shit; you can tell he is just out of his mind."

"For chill occasions, I’d probably put on any DJ Screw tape. ’My Mind Went Black,’ off the All Screwed Up, Vol. II compilation, is one of my favorites. There’s something about screwed guitar and drums that I just love. I’ve forgotten how the original song sounds because I’ve listened to this version so many times."

"’Let It Go’ is one of DJ Rashad’s last songs, and it’s one of my favorites. I love when he mis soul samples with juke [a super-fast, Chicago-native genre house of house music]. It’s so beautiful. I was lucky enough to hang out once with Rashad and his friends. We were driving around, listening to their new mis, and I was just squished knee-to-knee with DJ Spinn smoking a blunt. This song makes me feel so good."

"The first time I did acid, I was listening to Boards of Canada, and I couldn’t stop laughing! I was thinking about Nick Cannon from Drumline as a Transformer. If you play this song on good speakers, you’re supposed to hear some sort of subliminal message. There’s a bunch of Boards of Canada songs that people get all dumb-conspiracy-theorist about."

"’Dunkelheit’ is Norwegian black metal. Burzum got big when Harmony Korine used his song for the title sequence of Gummo. He’s a crazy guy who went to jail for burning down churches and killing the guitarist of Mayhem. He’s awful. A psychopath. That said, some of the best music comes from the most fucked up frames of mind."